


And she never wanted to leave...

by XProphaneX



Series: The Pack [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Forsaken, Madness, Original work - Freeform, Other, Sad, Song: Jenny of Oldstones, Songfic, Undeath, Undercity, World of Warcraft - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 02:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19821130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XProphaneX/pseuds/XProphaneX
Summary: Low on cash and time Syonnide, a Forsaken Hunter, picks up a flyer from the Hero's Call board in Undercity. Kill the target, collect the bounty, it was supposed to be so simple.





	And she never wanted to leave...

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to give the Forsaken some form of humanity back. It seems to have been robbed from them in the current game. i was inspired by the song and it seems to be such a good fit for the Forsaken. Hope everyone enjoys.

To Syonnide traversing the halls of the Undercity was second nature. For many other races, driven by whatever desperate need into the bowels of Lordaeron's sewers, the labyrinth of bridges, corridors and lift shafts seemed almost impossible to master. Despite his own comfort, Briarfang, his faithful lupine companion was most vocal about his lack of it.

Most of natures creations where ill at ease around the undead. The Forsaken where, in essence incredibly _unnatural_ , hence the fact that very few creatures would consent to be their mounts, unless they too where past the point of life. It had taken a long time and the patience of the grave to build trust with an animal again, and though Briarfang extended his trust to his master, he was not willing to extend it to his entire race.

Syonnide reached to his side and ran a gloved hand over the wolf's raised hackles, his cracked and croaky voice, doing what it could to sound calming. “Just a little while longer, and we will be in Orgrimmar to meet the other's” he could feel the fur start to settle a little and the faint grumbling growl slowly faded away. Probably as good as he was going to get.

As he ascended the stairs, the exposed bones in his knees creaked and cracked a little. Despite being dead, he still had to deal with his joints complaining at him, granted a little louder than when he had been alive. The large bank suspended in the centre of network of stairs was his next stop, so at least his knees wouldn't be complaining for much longer.

He walked up to the nearest available window and awaited the usual greeting from the Montague behind the grill.

“Can I help you?” The female voice seemed to come from no discernible direction, though it's source was the ghost hovering on the other side of the bars.

“I need to withdraw some gold.” Syonnide said, placing his hand once again hackled fur of his animal companion. He was starting to regret not simply catching the Zeppelin rather than aiming for a portal. “What's my balance?”

There was a moment or two of silence as the pages of the ledger turned to his name. Ophelia ran a ghostly finger along the rows of numbers and names.

“Three gold, eighty seven silver and thirty nine copper.” She said, forlornly.

That was a piddling amount. He was sure had banked more than that over the past few weeks. Then again...it had been one expense after another recently. Decent bowstrings where not cheep, he had had to replace his skinning knife in Booty Bay, bloody robbing Goblins... maybe he _had_ been less frugal than he thought.

“I'll leave it for now.” He said.

“As you wish.” The ghost moved her arm and the ledger closed with a dusty whoomp. “Dark Lady watch over you.”

He mirrored her comment as he walked away from the window and off up some more steps, followed doggedly by his pet. He as supposed to be travelling back to the cape of Stranglethorn to hunt Gorilla with his companions, but he would be foolish not to go there well equipped, seeing as the Goblins had already picked his pockets once.

He made some quick calculations in his head as he propelled himself up yet more stairs. His armour needed fixing, gorilla's hit like an orcs and without armour that could do some serious damage. He needed money for the flight masters, though he was an accomplished hunter, it didn't mean he _wanted_ to track threw dense jungle. Then there where supplies for Briarfang...

He could take out all his money and pay for everything from that, but it would leave him with nothing to fall back on, or at least very little. As this drifted around in his head, he realised he was heading for the Hero's Call board. With all of the thoughts taking up space in his brain, his feet seemed to have acted of their own accord.

He perused the bits of parchment hastily tacked to the board. Help wanted, Adventurers needed, gold for the making, all of the usual stuff, all involving a great deal of travel he didn't have time for. He just needed something small, simple and easy. Surely a leatherworker needed some pelts or an alchemist felt too rich and too lazy to gather his own herbs. He flipped threw some of the bottom stacks but nothing small seemed to be on offer. That was when he caught sight of a freshly tacked bit of parchment in the top corner.

_(Local)_

_Help wanted._

_Render into eternal death one Jenny Proctor._

_Details with Jerome Quinn, lower Trade Quarter._

_Reward: 20 Gold._

Twenty Gold for killing a lone woman? Either this Jenny Proctor was a real pain in someone's arse, or she was going to be a bitch to kill. He felt like he should write it off...but twenty gold coins was a decent amount of money in his bank account especially on top of the profits he could squeeze from his trip to Stanglethorn. It couldn't hurt to enquire.

Reaching up he pulled the parchment from the board. He was in luck at least that he must have been the first to visit the board since it had been put up. Surely a price like that would have drawn anyone in. He made his way to the lower Trade Quarter and asked around for Jerome, pointed In the direction of a Deathguard.

The Deathguard nodded to Syonnide as he approached him, noting the parchment in the hunters hand. He titled his head toward a more quiet corner and left his post, his fellow Deathguard on duty only inclining his head and waving at Syonnide to follow Jerome.

“You here to pick up the job?”

“Aye, but I wouldn't have thought a Deathguard would be able to pay twenty gold for an assassination.” Syonnide said, giving the man a look up and down. A soldier ordering a hit? Why couldn't he do it himself, it wasn't like he didn't have the training.”

“It ain't no assassination, Hunter!” Jerome snapped. The edge to that ruined voice was raw with anger mirrored in his milky eyes. He caught himself in a moment and closed his eyes while he regained his temper. “it's mercy.” Jerome muttered “Jenny was...my cousin...in life. Now she's lost and I want her put to rest before anyone up top learns about her. It's my duty to get this done.”

Syonnide remained silent. He watched the Deathguard, obviously uncomfortable in his request, wrestle with dark emotions bubbling beneath the surface. It didn't seem right to speak just yet, so he let the Forsaken continue at his own pace.

“She's up in the ruins of Lordaeron, I dunno where exactly, she wanders about.” he didn't seem able to meet Syonnides gaze anymore, looking at the floor. “You will understand when you see her, just....come back for your money if you do it.”

He didn't seem interested in a reply, instead Jerome stalked off, back to his post, his fellow guard making no acknowledgement of his return.

~@~

The City of Lordaeron was already a war broken wreck when the Forsaken had moved back into it. Though they had had fortified the Sewers they now called home, the upper city was left to the elements and horrors of the past. Dark grey stone seemed somehow more oppressive in it's ruined state than it ever had in the days when people have lived here.

Despite being out of the Undercity, Briarfang seemed to be just as on edge as he had been down below. He stuck to his masters side, sniffing the air and the ground and giving a threatening growl at thin air. Syonnide continued to try and keep him calm by petting him, bony fingered raking threw course fur in a steady rhythm mumbling that everything was alright.

He picked his way across the pitted and uneven cobblestones, wind whistling threw old empty windows and doorways causing what was left of the doors to clatter around. It was hard to imagine that once there had been families inside, warm hearths and laughter, now there was nothing but deep shadow. Yet still he had the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck.

He passed threw what had once been a bustling market square, the detritus of life and happy times littered the open space. The remains of stalls where still rotting in their places. Timbers brittle and splintered had fallen in on themselves over the years, scraps of tattered dirty cloth waved in the breeze.

It was around an hour before anything other than crumbling masonry, his own footsteps and the whistling wind could be heard in lifeless city. Briairfang's hackles stood on end and he emitted a deep and threatening growl as the sound of laughter encircled them, bouncing off the walls. It was no shrill cackle of malice, it bubbled like a brook from the stones, happy and elated, which made it all the more unnerving.

Syonnide crouched by his companions side and hushed him, the wolf falling silent at the commanding tone after a few whimpers of unhappiness. The hunter patted his head a few times before standing up and looking around trying to work out the location of the sounds origin The laughter bubbled up again from the city of the dead and he swung around trying to pinpoint it.

He glanced down at Briarfang and as the laughter continued, the wolf's ears, much sharper than his picked up the sound before it's first echoed and turned his head to the north, ears flat against his head, hunched over, tail between his legs.

“Come on, boy.” Syonnide muttered and sped up his walk into a jog. The wolf followed, dutiful to his masters wishes but still clearly unhappy.

The laughter got louder the further north they travelled, and the empty buildings became bigger, grander and more expensive as they proceeded. Obviously they had come into the toffs area of the city, where the rich could watch the poor from above, a safe and respectable distance from the lower class. The closer they got the less the echo interfered with his navigation until he found himself outside a particularly large stately home.

It was run down, but still an impressive structure. The large wrought iron gates, that in the past had protected a substantial front garden, hung limply off on of it's remaining hinges. What once had been a riot of colour and lush green lawn, was dusty and barren, only hardened weeds clinging to life in the cracked, bitter soil.

As silently as possible Syonnide picked his way across the broken path that trailed to the front door, now nothing more than a large square hole in the wall. It's once grand doors where laying on the floor in soft and rotting splinters. He paused only long enough camouflage both himself and Briarfang, before entering the building, crossbow drawn.

It was dark inside, the only light filtering threw what was left of the windows, the dim grey of falling dusk doing little to help as he picked his way through the house following the sound, now more than just laughter. At first unintelligible mumbles through walls , then every so often, snatches of speech threw an empty doorway.

Almost invisible he stalked the halls till he found came across a large pair of heavy oak doors. These at least, seemed to have remained in working order even if the varnish was peeling and the brass of the ornate doorhandles was a vibrant shade of oxidised green. The talking was coming from inside the room these doors where guarding. Opening them would be a bad move...

There was a wet cold nose at his leg. Briarfang nudged him a little more till he was sure he had his masters attention, and turned his head towards a small set of stairs, covered in what remained of threadbare red carpet. It was worth a try. He moved silently to the stairs and ascended, coming out of the gloom onto a balcony, overlooking a large open room.

“Oh darling, it's perfect!”

Dropping to his belly, Syonnide moved forward to the edge of the balcony and peered between the broken bannister down into the room below.

“How many people did you invite?” The delighted squeal of excitement was emanating from a female Forsaken in the middle of what might once have been a ballroom. The dress she wore was more opulent than anything Syonnide had seen any forsaken in the Undercity ware, even if it was the worse of ware. Moths had obviously been feeding on the golden silk for years, and mould had started to blossom on the hems of the skirt and sleeves, having finished eating away the lace on one of it's shoulders entirely.

“Duncan, I hope you remember everyone's names, I...it has been such a long time I cannot recall...it would be most rude if I where unable to greet someone properly.” Despite her undeath, it was easy to see that once, Jenny Proctor had been most beautiful. Her large doe shaped eyes, now glowing and milky now set in worry at the very idea of social faux-pas, must have beguiled many a man's heart. “People will think me uncultured.” She continued to whisper urgently to thin air beside her.

Syonnide watched as she smiled into the silence and reached up as if to caress the cheek of someone standing there. All the worry in her eyes seemed to melt away. The exposed bones of her rotting fingers, moved with the gentleness and devotion, as if brushing hair from someone's eyes.

“Duncan...” She cooed, eyes focused on thin air a little over a foot above her. “Oh!”She whirled around to her left as if caught in a moment of public inappropriateness. “Y-your grace! I...I am afraid I didn't see you there!...Why yes. It was a present from my husband...do you like it?” Taking the fading skirts in her hands she splayed them out for the invisible viewer to see, then spun around with a girlish giggle.

It was difficult to watch. From his vantage point in the balcony Syonnide felt pity welling inside as she continued to chatter to herself and theDuke she clearly thought was complimenting her. He silently reached behind himself and fished out a crossbow bolt, fitting it to the taught wire.

This was the danger of giving the undead their minds back, freeing them from the Lich King was sometimes more than sanity could take. Some become mindless ghouls, nothing more then Arthas had wanted them to be. Syonnide had put a bolt in their brains, without a second thought. Others...broke, not mindless but lost in what had been, the fog of memory claiming them.

Below,, Jenny was laughing again. She settled her arms around an imaginary man, delicately holding out her voluminous skirts she started spinning, a dance with nobody. She hummed along to the music playing in her head as she waltz around the room in time. Her feet, bare under the dress glided over the broken shards from the smashed mirrors once set in the wall, unfeeling as they dug into her blue-grey flesh.

Syonnide moved himself into position, sure that the arrow was lined up true, his eye to the guide. It would be swift, a bolt to the back of the head and everything would be over. She would be free from this madness, this torment of life thrust on her by a mad Prince. He put his finger to the trigger and started to pull. Jenny tipped back her head, eye closed and lips, still full even now, spread in a smile.

Moments passed. His finger seemed frozen on the trigger. Jenny continued to spin around and around in her dance, oblivious to the world around her, unable to see the ruin of the once grand and opulent house that was falling appart over time and neglect. All Syonnide could do was look at her face, the beauty was slowly fading, but her smile...it was so peaceful...it was true, unbridled happiness.

Slowly he removed his hand from the crossbow. He looked at the bow for a moment before taking the bolt out and sliding it back home with it's brothers. He swung the bow back on his back, shimmying back from the ledge and standing, as silently as he could, with Briarfang on his heels, he walked away.

~@~

The cold air rushed passed as the Zeppelin slowly left Undercity behind. In it's belly Syonnide absent-mindedly stroking threw his wolf's fur as the dark countryside flew by the porthole. He hadn't gone back to Undercity, he didn't think he could bring himself to do so for a long time to come.

A quiet conversations between other passengers was intruding little on his time alone. A couple of Blood Elves where sat in one corner chatting in their fluid tongue to a third who seemed to trying to fend them off with shakes of his head and a smile.

“Hay, Hunter!”

Even Orcish sounded more cultured when spoken by an Elf. Syonnide lifted his head, he had been blankly staring at the wood grain of the table it seemed, lost in his own thoughts. He moved his head in the direction of the shout, and one of the elves who hailed him.

“You wouldn't mind a little music while we go would you? It's a long way to the city.” The look in those glowing green eyes urged him to agree to his question. For the first time he noticed that the third elf, a dark haired and handsome looking youth, hand a lute resting on his lap.

“Aye. Might make the trip go a little faster.” Syonnide croaked. It Might even distract him a little.

The black haired bard seemed resigned to his fate and finally threw his hands in the hair and chuckled a he gave in. “Fine, fine...” he took the instrument in his hands and readied his fingers on the fret. “I'll play something local for you then, friend.”

Syonnide nodded and leaned back as the notes where brushed into life and soared threw the air.

“ _High in the halls of the kings who are gone_  
Jenny would dance with her ghosts  
The ones she had lost and the ones she had found  
And the ones who had loved her the most

 _The ones who'd been gone for so very long_  
She couldn't remember their names  
They spun her around on the damp old stones  
Spun away all her sorrow and pain

_And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave  
Never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave_

_They danced through the day_  
And into the night through the snow that swept through the hall  
From winter to summer then winter again  
'Til the walls did crumble and fall

 _And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave_  
Never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave  
And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave  
Never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave

 _High in the halls of the kings who are gone_  
Jenny would dance with her ghosts  
The ones she had lost and the ones she had found  
And the ones  
Who had loved her the most”

~@~

Three years passed. Syonnide leaned against the Hero's Call board in the undercity with his arms crossed and and an eyebrow cocked as his troll companion attempted to talk some sense into their Orcish companion. The undead shook his head and looked skyward, which set his hanging purple tongue wiggling too and fro.

“We are not leaving till we find Evangelil, he's got to be around her somewhere!” Raggerrock growled stubbornly “If this place wasn't so stupidly mapped out this would never have happened!”

“Ya be one stubborn bast'ad, Ragga.” Zudai said, stretching to his full hight. “Ya boy can meet us at de Zepplin, I hate dis damn place and de beasts don' like it neither!”

Syonnide knew he should probably split this up but it was mildly entertaining for the moment. A flutter of parchment beside him caught his eye as someone breezed past the board and he half turned to look...and froze. Up in the corner was a fresh sheet of parchment, bright and new against the curling yellow of those around it.

_(Local)_

_Help wanted._

_Render into eternal death one Jenny Proctor._

_Details with Jerome Quinn, lower Trade Quarter._

_Reward: 100 Gold_


End file.
